The Instructional Methodology of Multiple intelligences (MI) was originally put forward by Howard Gardner, a professor at Harvard University in 1983. The methodology for this and how it works is elaborated below. However simply put, at it's core, is the belief that all learners are not the same and can use different "Intelligences", not just cognitive or behaviorally, rooted to learn, retain and share information. Clearly this educational concept impacts the LMS and our instructional roles because it allows for a very robust information exchange (collaboration) between the Library Media Specialist and the student or students, students to student communication, and LMS to teacher.
Additionally you will see that MI is suitable for the LMC because it utilizes our strengths that include, flexible hours, group work, use of various media such as video and audio, digital information and even quiet solitary reflection.
MI challenges us to broaden our collection to include materials that support the seven different types of learning, assessment and sharing styles that constitute MI. In 1998, the Information Power Vision Committee, created a list of seven " Learning and Teaching Principals for School Library Media Programs " (Learning Power 1998). Principle seven discusses "The library media program supporting the learning of all students … who have diverse learning abilities, styles and needs. " This principle is supported by five goals . Goal one (page 68) specifically addresses the need to maintain a collection that is in a "format and content to support learning needs of students and other members of the learning community with a wide spectrum of abilities, backgrounds, needs and learning styles." This principle and the supporting goal directly support the learning methodology of Multiple Intelligence. Clearly we need to add to, and maintain in, our collections not only books but audio recordings, play-aways, dvd's, author visit's, xbox based educational games, computer simulations, Kindels, iPads and additional "out of the box" circulation materials now and in the future.
Multiple Intelligences was developed as part of Dr. Gardner's participation in the Bernard Van Leer Foundation grant of 1979. The Dutch foundation embarked on a large scale project which came to be called the Project Human Potential where scholars were asked to do research "on the nature of human potential and how it could best be catalyzed" (Gardner, 2003). Gardner's assignment was "to write a book about what had been established about human cognition through discoveries in the biological and behavioral sciences" (Gardner, 2003). The book, when published, was called Frames of Mind. It gave birth to seven "abilities or gifts" (Gardner, 2003) which Gardner qualified as Multiple Intelligences. The original seven Multiple Intelligences were Linguistic, Logical-Mathematical, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Musical, and Spatial. Gardner added an eighth, Naturalist Intelligence, after the book was published. Gardener has indicated that much to his surprise, his work was more vibrantly discussed and embraced in the educational community as opposed by the psychological scholars in his field of expertise as he intended.
What made Gardner's work ground-breaking was that it challenged conventional thinking on what constitutes intelligence, as defined and assessed by the standard IQ test that had been used for years prior to measure a learners mathematical, verbal, and perceptual ability. Up until that point only cognitive Intelligence was really embraced.
As I process the research, including Gardner's own 2003 paper, "Multiple Intelligences After Twenty Years", I see Gardner's research opened the door and basically rocked the boat in two ways. First ,why is only someone who scores high on a cognitive test considered intelligent? What about a brilliant mathematician or musician? Are they intelligent or simply masters of a task or role? And secondly, he opened the door to students using, as I call it, their " intelligence bias." Some students gather and retain information when it is presented perhaps in a non cognitive way … perhaps by audio, or visually, or deep reflection or by working in a group, etc. As he writes, "we can approach topics in a number of ways; we can make use of analogies and comparisons drawn from a range of domains; and we can express the key notions or concepts in a number of different symbolic forms" (Gardner, 2003).
In doing my research there were several thoughts that continued to surface:
The first seems to me to be that Gardner's thinking is somewhat similar to that of Edgar Dale, known for his Cone of Experience. To me it is clear that both of these men clearly endorsed learning and retention via methods way outside of the traditional cognitive, behavioral schools of thought and procedure.
Secondly, I was shocked at the volumes of work and commentary available on this topic. So much so, Howard Gardner himself is somewhat baffled. There are different levels to this as Gardner writes, " I had noticed a number of misinterpretations of the theory " and " I began to differentiate my “take” on MI from that of others who had learned about and tried to make use of the theory ." He also wrote, " I have come to realize that once one releases an idea—a “meme”—into the world, one cannot completely control its behavior—anymore than one can control those products of our genes called children (Gardner, 2003). As related to the implementation of such in LMCs I think we need to be mindful of the deviations on his original intent.
Third, the usage of MI is widespread. The two projects well known implementations that I researched are the Harvard Project Zero, Summer Institute and and the K to 12 usage of MI, the New City School, St. Louis, Missouri.
The Harvard Project Zero Classroom is, "designed to help educators create classrooms, instructional materials, and out-of-school learning environments that promote students' efforts to understand important content; recognize and develop students' multiple intellectual strengths; encourage students to think critically and creatively; and assess student work in ways that further the learning. " (http://www.pz.harvard.edu/SI/Sympwork.cfm.")
The New City School has been using the theory since 1988. The teachers and administrators at the school host international workshops on MI and their staff has written several books on the topic (Celebrating Multiple Intelligences, Succeeding With Multiple Intelligences, and Becoming a Multiple Intelligences) The schools website boasts " students consistently score three to four years above grade level on the nationally-normed Stanford Achievement Test. Over the last ten years, graduating New City School students have consistently scored in the top 10% among private and public school students nation-wide. On average,the top one-third of the New City School graduating class scores in the top 3% - 5% against national norms on the complete battery of tests. " (http://www.newcityschool.org/Curriculum_18.aspx)
Fourth, I was stunned that Howard Gardner is still very involved and active in the field of MI And even more exciting to me is that he has indicated that more intelligences are applicable and may be added, such as existential and digital intelligences. I went into this research thinking that this was a static and defined educational concept. (The 25th anniversary of the publication of Howard Gardner's Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. April, 2008.) and (http://pzweb.harvard.edu/PIs/HG_MI_after_20_years.pdf)
Finally, fifth, MI is not intended to be a universal fix and it is not without opposition. " One major criticism of the theory is that it is ad hoc: that Gardner is not expanding the definition of the word "intelligence"; rather, he denies the existence of intelligence as traditionally understood and instead uses the word "intelligence" whenever other people have traditionally used words like "ability". This practice has been criticized by Robert J. Sternberg (1983, 1991), Eysenck (1994), and Scarr (1985). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences#cite_note-5).
In this same light even Gardner writes, "I think that MI approaches are particularly useful when a student is trying to master a challenging new concept—say, gravity in physics, or the Zeitgeist in history. I am less persuaded that it can be useful in mastering a foreign language—though I admire those teachers of foreign languages who claim success using MI approaches." (Gardner 2003)
1- Verbal-linguistic intelligenceVerbal-linguistic intelligence refers to language ability, sensitivity to language and vocabulary, and the ability to follow the rules of grammar with ease. Persons who have a great deal of verbal-linguistic intelligence understand the many functions of language. They know how to use language to excite, stimulate, convince, and to convey information.
2- Logical-mathematical intelligenceLogical-mathematical intelligence is the ability to think logically, mathematically, and scientifically. Persons who are high in logical-mathematical intelligence have the ability to reason abstractly and complexly. They are driven to solve problems and to understand and explain the nature of our world.
3- Intrapersonal intelligenceIntrapersonal intelligence is the ability to understand oneself. Persons who score high in intrapersonal intelligence have an accurate understanding of themselves and use this understanding to operate effectively in day-to-day life. They understand their emotions and are highly attuned to them.
4- Interpersonal intelligenceInterpersonal intelligence is a form of social understanding. Persons with interpersonal intelligence have the ability to read others' moods, temperaments, motivations, and intentions. They understand others and can use their understanding to influence others and enhance their daily experiences.
5- Musical-rhythmic intelligenceMusical-rhythmic intelligence is the ability to understand and use musical elements such as pitch, rhythm, and timbre. It includes the ability to play musical instruments, compose music, and analyze and appreciate the elements of music.
6- Visual-spatial intelligenceVisual-spatial intelligence encompasses the ability to perceive and depict the world accurately. Persons with visual-spatial intelligence can sense themselves in space and have a good sense of direction. Visual-spatial intelligence also includes the artistic and representational abilities of painters, sculptors, and artists.
7- Bodily-kinesthetic intelligenceBodily-kinesthetic intelligence is the ability to control bodily movements and to handle objects skillfully. Dancers, athletes, and actors exhibit bodily-kinesthetic intelligence.
8- Naturalistic intelligenceNaturalistic intelligence is the ability to understand the world of nature. It includes the ability to relate to, categorize, comprehend, and explain various aspects of nature including plants, animals, and settings.
The Instructional Methodology of Multiple intelligences (MI) was originally put forward by Howard Gardner, a professor at Harvard University in 1983. The methodology for this and how it works is elaborated below. However simply put, at it's core, is the belief that all learners are not the same and can use different "Intelligences", not just cognitive or behaviorally, rooted to learn, retain and share information. Clearly this educational concept impacts the LMS and our instructional roles because it allows for a very robust information exchange (collaboration) between the Library Media Specialist and the student or students, students to student communication, and LMS to teacher.
Additionally you will see that MI is suitable for the LMC because it utilizes our strengths that include, flexible hours, group work, use of various media such as video and audio, digital information and even quiet solitary reflection.
MI challenges us to broaden our collection to include materials that support the seven different types of learning, assessment and sharing styles that constitute MI. In 1998, the Information Power Vision Committee, created a list of seven " Learning and Teaching Principals for School Library Media Programs " (Learning Power 1998). Principle seven discusses "The library media program supporting the learning of all students … who have diverse learning abilities, styles and needs. " This principle is supported by five goals . Goal one (page 68) specifically addresses the need to maintain a collection that is in a "format and content to support learning needs of students and other members of the learning community with a wide spectrum of abilities, backgrounds, needs and learning styles." This principle and the supporting goal directly support the learning methodology of Multiple Intelligence. Clearly we need to add to, and maintain in, our collections not only books but audio recordings, play-aways, dvd's, author visit's, xbox based educational games, computer simulations, Kindels, iPads and additional "out of the box" circulation materials now and in the future.
Multiple Intelligences was developed as part of Dr. Gardner's participation in the Bernard Van Leer Foundation grant of 1979. The Dutch foundation embarked on a large scale project which came to be called the Project Human Potential where scholars were asked to do research "on the nature of human potential and how it could best be catalyzed" (Gardner, 2003). Gardner's assignment was "to write a book about what had been established about human cognition through discoveries in the biological and behavioral sciences" (Gardner, 2003). The book, when published, was called Frames of Mind. It gave birth to seven "abilities or gifts" (Gardner, 2003) which Gardner qualified as Multiple Intelligences. The original seven Multiple Intelligences were Linguistic, Logical-Mathematical, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Musical, and Spatial. Gardner added an eighth, Naturalist Intelligence, after the book was published. Gardener has indicated that much to his surprise, his work was more vibrantly discussed and embraced in the educational community as opposed by the psychological scholars in his field of expertise as he intended.
What made Gardner's work ground-breaking was that it challenged conventional thinking on what constitutes intelligence, as defined and assessed by the standard IQ test that had been used for years prior to measure a learners mathematical, verbal, and perceptual ability. Up until that point only cognitive Intelligence was really embraced.
As I process the research, including Gardner's own 2003 paper, "Multiple Intelligences After Twenty Years", I see Gardner's research opened the door and basically rocked the boat in two ways. First ,why is only someone who scores high on a cognitive test considered intelligent? What about a brilliant mathematician or musician? Are they intelligent or simply masters of a task or role? And secondly, he opened the door to students using, as I call it, their " intelligence bias." Some students gather and retain information when it is presented perhaps in a non cognitive way … perhaps by audio, or visually, or deep reflection or by working in a group, etc. As he writes, "we can approach topics in a number of ways; we can make use of analogies and comparisons drawn from a range of domains; and we can express the key notions or concepts in a number of different symbolic forms" (Gardner, 2003).
In doing my research there were several thoughts that continued to surface:
The first seems to me to be that Gardner's thinking is somewhat similar to that of Edgar Dale, known for his Cone of Experience. To me it is clear that both of these men clearly endorsed learning and retention via methods way outside of the traditional cognitive, behavioral schools of thought and procedure.
Secondly, I was shocked at the volumes of work and commentary available on this topic. So much so, Howard Gardner himself is somewhat baffled. There are different levels to this as Gardner writes, " I had noticed a number of misinterpretations of the theory " and " I began to differentiate my “take” on MI from that of others who had learned about and tried to make use of the theory ." He also wrote, " I have come to realize that once one releases an idea—a “meme”—into the world, one cannot completely control its behavior—anymore than one can control those products of our genes called children (Gardner, 2003). As related to the implementation of such in LMCs I think we need to be mindful of the deviations on his original intent.
Third, the usage of MI is widespread. The two projects well known implementations that I researched are the Harvard Project Zero, Summer Institute and and the K to 12 usage of MI, the New City School, St. Louis, Missouri.
The Harvard Project Zero Classroom is, "designed to help educators create classrooms, instructional materials, and out-of-school learning environments that promote students' efforts to understand important content; recognize and develop students' multiple intellectual strengths; encourage students to think critically and creatively; and assess student work in ways that further the learning. " (http://www.pz.harvard.edu/SI/Sympwork.cfm.")
The New City School has been using the theory since 1988. The teachers and administrators at the school host international workshops on MI and their staff has written several books on the topic (Celebrating Multiple Intelligences, Succeeding With Multiple Intelligences, and Becoming a Multiple Intelligences) The schools website boasts " students consistently score three to four years above grade level on the nationally-normed Stanford Achievement Test. Over the last ten years, graduating New City School students have consistently scored in the top 10% among private and public school students nation-wide. On average,the top one-third of the New City School graduating class scores in the top 3% - 5% against national norms on the complete battery of tests. "
(http://www.newcityschool.org/Curriculum_18.aspx)
Fourth, I was stunned that Howard Gardner is still very involved and active in the field of MI And even more exciting to me is that he has indicated that more intelligences are applicable and may be added, such as existential and digital intelligences. I went into this research thinking that this was a static and defined educational concept. (The 25th anniversary of the publication of Howard Gardner's Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. April, 2008.) and (http://pzweb.harvard.edu/PIs/HG_MI_after_20_years.pdf)
Finally, fifth, MI is not intended to be a universal fix and it is not without opposition. " One major criticism of the theory is that it is ad hoc: that Gardner is not expanding the definition of the word "intelligence"; rather, he denies the existence of intelligence as traditionally understood and instead uses the word "intelligence" whenever other people have traditionally used words like "ability". This practice has been criticized by Robert J. Sternberg (1983, 1991), Eysenck (1994), and Scarr (1985). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences#cite_note-5).
In this same light even Gardner writes, "I think that MI approaches are particularly useful when a student is trying to master a challenging new concept—say, gravity in physics, or the Zeitgeist in history. I am less persuaded that it can be useful in mastering a foreign language—though I admire those teachers of foreign languages who claim success using MI approaches." (Gardner 2003)
The eight currently recognized Multiple Intelligences and their definitions are sited below as published at:
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/developmental_psychology/68135
1- Verbal-linguistic intelligenceVerbal-linguistic intelligence refers to language ability, sensitivity to language and vocabulary, and the ability to follow the rules of grammar with ease. Persons who have a great deal of verbal-linguistic intelligence understand the many functions of language. They know how to use language to excite, stimulate, convince, and to convey information.
2- Logical-mathematical intelligenceLogical-mathematical intelligence is the ability to think logically, mathematically, and scientifically. Persons who are high in logical-mathematical intelligence have the ability to reason abstractly and complexly. They are driven to solve problems and to understand and explain the nature of our world.
3- Intrapersonal intelligenceIntrapersonal intelligence is the ability to understand oneself. Persons who score high in intrapersonal intelligence have an accurate understanding of themselves and use this understanding to operate effectively in day-to-day life. They understand their emotions and are highly attuned to them.
4- Interpersonal intelligenceInterpersonal intelligence is a form of social understanding. Persons with interpersonal intelligence have the ability to read others' moods, temperaments, motivations, and intentions. They understand others and can use their understanding to influence others and enhance their daily experiences.
5- Musical-rhythmic intelligenceMusical-rhythmic intelligence is the ability to understand and use musical elements such as pitch, rhythm, and timbre. It includes the ability to play musical instruments, compose music, and analyze and appreciate the elements of music.
6- Visual-spatial intelligenceVisual-spatial intelligence encompasses the ability to perceive and depict the world accurately. Persons with visual-spatial intelligence can sense themselves in space and have a good sense of direction. Visual-spatial intelligence also includes the artistic and representational abilities of painters, sculptors, and artists.
7- Bodily-kinesthetic intelligenceBodily-kinesthetic intelligence is the ability to control bodily movements and to handle objects skillfully. Dancers, athletes, and actors exhibit bodily-kinesthetic intelligence.
8- Naturalistic intelligenceNaturalistic intelligence is the ability to understand the world of nature. It includes the ability to relate to, categorize, comprehend, and explain various aspects of nature including plants, animals, and settings.
Resources
www.tecweb.org/styles/gardner.html
www.lth3.k12.il.us/rhampton/mi/mi.html
http://www.suite101.com/content/multiple-intelligences-a31863#ixzz13THPQeq1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences#cite_note-5
http://www.miapp.net
http://www.pz.harvard.edu
http://www.wideworld.pz.harvard.edu
http://www.slideshare.net/ccapozzoli/howard-gardner-35446
http://pzweb.harvard.edu/PIs/HG_MI_after_20_years.pdf
http://www.howardgardner.com/MI/mi.html
http://pzweb.harvard.edu/PIs/HG_MI_after_20_years.pdf